Monday, 1 June 2015

The spoils of Tadmur (Palmyra) airbase, captured by the Islamic State

By Stijn Mitzer and Joost Oliemans

Images from the recently captured Tadmur airbase reveal some of the Ghaneema (spoils of war) gained by the Islamic State during their spring offensive, which led to the capture of a number of
strategically located towns and gasfields in Central Syria. Tadmur (Palmyra) itself was
captured on the 20th of May 2015, opening the path for the fighters of
the Islamic State to further push into regime-controlled ground,
threatening major cities, T4 airbase and the last remaining gas fields
under control of the regime.

While one could have
expected large amounts of aircraft to now be under the control of the Islamic
State, Tadmur airbase housed no operational aircraft or helicopters at
the time of capture, and its fall thus won't hurt the Syrian Arab Air
Force's (SyAAF) ability to exercise control over the Syrian skies.

The
loss of the airbase, and of Tadmur in general, will have a great impact
on the regime's operations in and around Deir ez-Zor however. Tadmur was the
primary lifeline to Deir ez-Zor, and without access to the road and
airbase, prospects for the regime to hold the largest city in
Eastern Syria have suddenly turned very grim. Il-76s from Iran's Revolutionary Guard also frequently visisted the base, bringing in weapons and ammunition.

The only
operational assets that remained at Tadmur airbase were several radar systems, tasked with guarding the Central Syrian
airspace. The importance of these radar systems at Tadmur was greatly increased after the fall of Tabqa, which housed another large radar base. With both of these airbases now lost, the regime is now as good as blind in Central and Eastern Syria, and therefore unable to detect any aircraft in this half of the country.

Although Tadmur airbase was formerly home to a squadron flying the
MiG-25PD(S) interceptor and
the MiG-25PU two-seat trainer, the MiG-25 fleet was gradually withdrawn near the end of the previous decade. Tadmur's resident squadron was one of the last to continue flying the mighty Foxbat, sporting three MiG-25PD(S) and one MiG-25PU in its ranks until late 2013. These aircraft were then likely flown to T4, where they joined the remainder of the MiG-25 fleet already stored here.

This explains the lack of any aircraft stored in one of Tadmur's sixteen Hardened Aircraft Shelters (HAS) pictured below. Instead, in similar fashion to what is seen in other airbases in Syria, some of the now redundant HAS's have been turned into barracks. While originally housing some of the SyAAF's most powerful aircraft, they now functioned as the homes of the resident garrison until the 20th of May 2015, when Tadmur was overrun by the Islamic State.

Several other HAS's were used as weapon depots, storing ammunition, field guns and even Kh-28 anti-radiation missiles, at least twelve of which can be seen in the images below. This is a surprising discovery as Tadmur never housed any aircraft capable of carrying the Kh-28. The reason for the presence of these missiles could be explained by improper military planning, resulting in the delivery of the missiles to this base without any plans of ever distributing them further through the country.

Tadmur saw heavy use by the Soviet Union for the delivery of sophisticated weaponry to Syria in the 70s and 80s. As transporting sophisticated weaponry by boat carries too much risks, such weaponry was always directly flown in by Soviet transport aircraft. These Kh-28s were among the many weapons to have followed this route, and were destined to be used by the SyAAF's Su-22M3/M4s, Su-22UM-3Ks and Su-24MKs based at the nearby T4 airbase.

While these missiles thus should have been moved to T4 more than thirty years ago, the fuel used in the 'staggering' sixty kilometers ride to T4 was apparently deemed more important than the twelve Kh-28 missiles, which therefore never left the HAS they were stored in after their delivery. Although the missiles will have no use to the Islamic State in their original role, their 140kg heavy warhead will indubitably be put to use as the basis of IEDs or possibly even DIY surface-to-surface missiles.

The
weapons depots present at the airbase provided the fighters
of the Islamic State with large amounts of Ghaneema, including ammunition, numerous anti-aircraft guns and at least two 130mm M-46 field guns, all left intact by the retreating regime forces.

While the ammunition and artillery pieces seem like logical targets for
the SyAAF's Su-22M4 and Su-24M2 fighter-bombers, both equipped with
sophisticated precision guided weaponry, yet none of the depots
were targeted by the SyAAF, which instead focussed on quite randomly
bombarding the city of Tadmur itself. Ultimately, the US-led coalition stepped in and destroyed six anti-aircraft guns and one artillery piece captured in Tadmur.[1]

Also found at Tadmur airbase were the remains of two abandoned Mi-17s that were left to rot after being cannibalised for spare parts.

Several images were dedicated to the various types of radars captured at Tadmur, none of which appeared
to have suffered any kind of damage. A total of six radars were captured in total, a heavy blow to Syria's air defences, nowadays all under control of the SyAAF.

Lastly, a mobile air traffic control tower was also captured, undoubtedly the least useful amongst the systems captured:

Images of a massive stash of boxes of 12.7mm ammunition are a good
indicator of the size of the stockpiles left behind to be captured at
Tadmur. In the munition-hungry environment that's common to the Syrian
battleground these new supplies will surely be very welcome to the
Islamic State.

What is he saving them for? A Rainy Day? The storm has come. Its either use them or lose them. Imagine the battles he could have turned around in Idlib if he used PGMs to hit Rebel TOW teams and aggressively used his helicopters to insert forces in the rebel rear to hit their resupply trucks and TOW teams to open the way for Mechanized Troops. Yet he uses them for area bombing civilians.

I suppose you should not think of the SAA as an army that has (or had) some kind of capable officer corps or an intact chain of command. Until 2014 they sent tanks into urban fighting without supporting them with proper infantry squads (you can see that on the infamous ANNA-news videos from Damascus suburbs)! One might think the SAA is a strong army if you look at the fact that they are now fighting against the rebels for over 4 years. In fact, they have only withstood until now because of the disagreements and the infighting weakening the rebel/Islamist side.Not to mention the supply situation the comment from 1 June 16:10 has already mentioned.

Assad's Logistics Department is breaking down. Soldiers are screaming about not having ammo, yet IS releases show the troops they overran had plenty of ammo in supply...

ISF forces trapped in Baiji Refinery say they have no ATGMs to combat IS SVBIEDs, yet IS captured 300 Kornet Missiles there and is now using them against SyAA in Hasakah...

I'm also skeptical of US kill claims, photos on twitter show IS using derelict equipment as decoy bomb bait with huge success and the CEP of even PGMs means no less than a direct hit will destroy an artillery piece, though they can kill crew and damage the soft components, but the piece would still be usable after clean up and remounting.

Any event it looks like Deir Ezzor is going to be held to the last man by SyAA. They denied all rumors they are leaving and launched fresh counter-attacks in the area. I don't understand their unwillingness to try to save themselves by making a fast column of everything that can move and lust go cross country towards the Aleppo Supply Lines which can organize a meeting force to open up a hole for them to get through. Assad can't afford the loss of his best General and his merry band of fighters, not after Tiger Force got TOWed. Not when he may need to get the Druze to send the rest of their sons into the grinder and who better to convince them than the Snake and his merry band of Ne'er-do-wells who came from the Druze.

I dont understand how ISIS seems to defeat better equiped opponents with ease. If reports are true there were 400-800 ISIS attackers, Palymra should have held easily. Hunker down in there bases and let them attack. Defenders could have easily held the airbase against ISIS. they dont have enough fighters to besiege that base.

Perhaps a morale issue? I saw a video last evening though on Reddit, were some NDF, (I think) had run out of ammunition and were sitting in a mosque waiting for the inevitable I suppose. Man I'd hate to be in that position - think I might have saved one bullet for myself ....

Oryx, regarding your November 22, 2014 post regarding the spoils of Mosul,what do you make of Iraqi PM al-Abadi's statement that the total number of Humvees captured was 2,300? When your post was last updated in March 2015, the number of destroyed Humvees and jeeps (proven by photographic evidence) was only 262. Hopefully with airstrikes from the IAF, the coalition, and Iran, the number of destroyed jeeps is much higher.

So nothing really that important was lost, even the radars dont really matter, its not like the SyAAF is going to challenge the "coalition" anyways. And none of the TERRORIST FACTIONS has a airforce of any kind. But still, they should have destroyed all the ammo and gear they couldnt take with them, so another failure of the Syrian "army". Its far worse, i fear what the DAESH captured at the "depots", we can only hope USAF has already pulverized all it can...

the news of loss of territory to the ISIL is always accompanied by the huge cache of arms left behind by the retreating forces including artillery pieces like the M46 as well as tanks like the Abrams- Has the ISIL fielded these sophisticated equipments in its attack? the preferred equipment of its attacks has been the vehicle laden IED's carried by suicide bombers and some mortars and in a defencive role they have been using anti tank missiles are there any cases that has witnessed where the ISIS has used tanks in their attacks or heavy artillery?

You will find elaborate answers to your questions elsewhere on this site.In short: Yes they used artillery and tanks (various videos show this).They haven't used the Abrams though. They destroyed the ones they captured intact.